Runaway gas prices

Last Saturday, I wrote that gas prices jumped 20 cents in less than a week. Guess what? It’s up again. Since that story ran five days ago, a gallon of regular unleaded in Seattle-Bellevue-Everett has gone up 11.9 cents, to $3.401 Thursday, according to the AAA Daily Fuel Gauge Report.

And while I can cite more statistics showing how prices are higher now than it was an hour, a month or a year ago, you’re probably more interested in how high prices will go.

The consensus seems to be that prices will peak at a higher level than they did last spring. In Seattle, that ceiling was reached May 14 at $3.465 a gallon.

In their most recent report Wednesday, government forecasters at the Energy Information Administration say two factors are working in consumers’ favor: high gasoline inventories and fewer expected refinery outages. According to the EIA’s This Week in Petroleum:

While seasonal stockdraws are expected in the next few weeks, gasoline inventories currently stand at 232.6 million barrels, or about 12 million barrels higher than this time last year and almost 8 percent above the 5-year average. And as was discussed in last week’s This Week in Petroleum it is expected that refinery outages this spring will not be as numerous or long-lasting as last year, while imports of gasoline remain around year-ago levels.

But there’s always a caveat: crude oil. A barrel of crude oil is around $100, or $40 more than it was last year, which translates to 95 cents a gallon more at the pump. The EIA says “this suggests that gasoline prices could rise still more if crude oil prices do not fall from current levels.”

Motorists who use diesel have also been feeling the hurt. At 355.2 cents per gallon, the average retail diesel price nationwide rose to the highest point ever, topping the previous record by almost 11 cents, according to the EIA.